Stephen Harris

Our climate crisis needs strong leadership now

Things aren’t looking good for the climate. Several pieces of bad news have this week highlighted the scale of the problem we face in turning the juggernaut of global CO2 emissions and the limits of our current efforts to do so.

Firstly, the International Energy Agency has found that despite the growth of renewable technologies, fossil fuel use is continuing to grow. The dirtiest fuel of all – coal – is growing faster than non-fossil energy sources and around half of plants built in 2011 use old, inefficient technology.

Meanwhile the EU failed to agree measures that would reduce the number of carbon permits available in its Emission Trading Scheme, meaning the price of carbon will likely stay so low as to make the scheme ineffective.

And here in the UK, we’re still struggling to secure the building of new nuclear power stations, most notably at Hinkley Point where EDF is demanding the government guarantee a price for the electricity produced for the next 40 years.

It’s no wonder that another report out today found that investors are still ploughing their money into the fossil fuel industry. The London School of Economics (LSE) and the think tank Carbon Tracker showed that companies spent $674bn (£439bn) last year on new sources of fossil fuels.

The report authors, including the economist Lord Stern who prepared a major study on climate change for the previous government in 2006, warn this is creating a “carbon bubble” that could burst when government policies limiting CO2 emissions come into force, with devastating effects on the economy.

Another way of looking at it is that industry just doesn’t believe effective regulations will come into play, essentially creating a self-fulfilling prophesy where oil companies will hold the world to ransom as the greater risk of economic turmoil will make it harder and harder for governments to actually follow through on their promises to cut emissions.

What this highlights is how vital the need for stronger leadership is right now. Politicians pay lip service to environmentalism without taking the action needed to get the public and private sector to work together to tackle the market failure that is man-made climate change.

The UK government is a perfect example. David Cameron can change his party’s logo, talk about ‘the greenest government ever’ and hug as many huskies as he likes, but it’s completely meaningless when his chancellor is championing a new fossil fuel boom.

The solutions to climate change – nuclear, renewables, carbon capture and storage, even electric vehicles – are not going to happen without state intervention. This doesn’t have to mean governments doing everything themselves, but it does mean acting in a convincing way, and backing it up with a certain amount of funding, to convince the private sector to get on board.

The reflections on Margaret Thatcher’s economic policies that have gone on in the last couple of weeks haven’t produced much consensus, despite what those who try to justify her national hero-status funeral say or believe.

But I think there are two valuable lessons from the former prime minister that could be applied to the problems we face when it comes to climate change. Firstly, the big problems of our age can only be dealt with by people who have the courage of their convictions, who are willing drive through reforms in the face of great opposition.

Secondly, if we leave things to get so bad that only rapid, earth-shaking action will be able to change things then we risk devastating people’s lives in the process (not to mention implementing solutions that may set us up for more problems in the future).

Readers' comments
(22)

Justin Gudgeon | 19 Apr 2013 3:55 pm

Correct; there is no crisis. The very language used by advocates of AGW is wrong. A 'crisis' refers to a single point or an event. At very worst, Global Warming could only ever be 'chronic' since it is something which takes place over time.

A very good article indeed. In view of the reluctance of politicians to act effectively on climate change, I think the only answer is people power and "crowd funding" of organisations such as Avaaz and 38 Degrees. This has been very effective and anyone who realises the importance of urgent action on climate change would want to support their campaigns on this subject. There is also the New Economics Foundation, which has a fresh approach to a new sort of economics that does not trash the planet.

Lots of people I have talked to want a change from the old economic system which is not serving us now and will not be possible in the future due to raw material, food and fuel shortages.

Of course the elephant in the room is overpopulation. People don't like talking about it but it must be tackled or else the population will reduce due to starvation anyway.

It all seems hopeless but there is a lot of pressure that can be brought to bear on politicians by ordinary people.

The writer takes a questionable stance (man-made causation) and wants other industries and taxpayers to foot the cost for green-lobbyists' industries and scam politicians. Sorry, but I am not buying into the snake oil salesmen.

Stop the political manipulation and let the marketplace work. If green is good, the market will adjust.

More seriously - clearly many commentators to this article disagree with the various stances of the article (state intervention, The 'Science', how apocalyptic climate change is, oil companies (and industry in general?)’ holding the world to ransom’). I’d be interested to know if the whole of The Engineer team fully agree with the article or if there is still scope for debate? For me this article goes along too far with the fear inducing apocalyptic vision of the future, possibly aiming to scare people into action, which actually encourages apathy and cynicism on all ‘sides’ and which I actually think puts people off engineering as the source of solutions to climate problems.

On Margaret Thatcher – we should remember that she was operating in the period where strong moral disagreements existed in how to run society (public/private etc.), so it was relatively easy for her or someone like her to appear decisive. To have this today we need strong people with the courage of their convictions on both ‘sides’, the restrainers/limiters/regulators and the ‘expanders’ – whether it be simply through the mechanisms of the market or free experimentation in bold technologies. It is only through proper debate an interrogation of each side’s ideas that a clearer path will emerge.

There are no guarantees for the future (which I see the ‘limiters/regulators’ hope for) and the market isn’t infact as dynamic as it could be or its supporters pretend – yes things get dug up & goods sold – but where are the transformative technologies that may allow us to effectively harness and even control the climate as we harnessed water and wind in the past? On the other hand – it is disingenuous of market reformers to try to hijack the state when people have largely supported the opposite at the ballot box.

What is The Engineer's stance or views on population limits, problems and solutions as they are very related to the climate topic?

It may be time to start thinking about fuel rationing (especially related to travel) as we transition to clean energy over the coming years. And certainly government subsidies to fossil fuels should be phased out asap.

Rationing was applied fairly and effectively during World War II. The current emergency is a war against our own polluting lifestyle, which is in fact a war on the planet itself.

The principles of rationing and how they might be applied during the transition to clean energy are examined here:

Any government serious about reducing carbon emissions would implement a fossil fuels tax, in proportion to the estimated damage which the pollution causes.

Of course there are all kinds of arguments used against this, such as "we can't accurately estimate the damage" or "it will drive industry overseas". But these needn't be show-stoppers. We can probably estimate the damage within some reasonable margin. And we can impose import tariffs on countries that don't play along.

The real reason it hasn't happened is that politicians are heavily 'lobbied' (= bought) by rich and powerful vested interest groups with a short-term profit mentality.

I'm no tree-hugging socialist. I believe that the free, FAIR market gives the best results. But the market needs to include 'externalities', such as the value of a functioning ecosystem, in order to work sustainably in the long term. Hence the need for carbon taxes and similar measures.